from the why-did-they-bother dept

As was widely expected, Harry Reid tried to bring the problematic Cybersecurity Act back from the dead today. He needed 60 votes for cloture, which would have then allowed the bill to actually be debated upon (with various amendments considered as well). However, after a few short grandstanding speeches, the attempt at cloture failed, 51 votes to 47, well short of the 60 votes needed. Harry Reid then got up and lashed out at his colleagues, basically saying that he and other Cybersecurity supporters have been spreading so much FUD about how we're going to be attacked that he can't believe Senators didn't fall for it. Of course, one of the problems is that all of the fearmongering failed to actually identify the problems or threats other than to handwave about planes falling out of the sky and similar fanciful stories. Furthermore, it fails to acknowledge that rushing through a bill that has significant impacts on privacy of the public -- especially at a time when people are increasingly concerned about government snooping -- is a bad thing. Reid admitted that the cybersecurity bill in this Congress is likely "dead," though I'm sure something like it will be revived before too long. How about next time, rather than rushing it through and ignoring civil liberties, the government actually highlights the specific regulatory problems already in place, and why this bill is needed -- and does so while including civil liberties advocates in the discussions?

from the cloture dept

Last month, Senator Harry Reid decided that the massive and growing public outcry against SOPA shouldn't be of any concern at all to the Democratic Party in the Senate, and announced plans to bring the Senate's companion bill, PROTECT IP (or PIPA) to the floor, in an attempt to get around Senator Ron Wyden's hold on the bill (Wyden has been joined by Senators Rand Paul, Jerry Moran and Maria Cantwell, in objecting to the bill and promising to fight against it). As has been noted, Senator Wyden has promised to read aloud the names of those who have signed a petition against the bill.

There has been some confusion over the whole process of the filibuster, as well as the process of the "cloture" vote to both get around the "hold" on the bill, as well as end the filibuster. Some have insisted that Wyden simply won't get to speak on the floor at all if there are the necessary 60 votes for cloture. So, thankfully, Ernesto Falcon at Public Knowledge has put together a fantastic post that explains the hold/cloture/filibuster process and more or less explains what will happen at the end of January if Reid can get the votes to get cloture:

On January 23rd, the United States Senate will reconvene to begin legislative business for 2012. After the first order of business is taken care of, Majority Leader Harry Reid will then continue the process he started on December 17th of moving PIPA towards a Senate floor vote. This process is known as invoking "cloture," which is a rule that allows any Senator to impose a 30 hour time limit on debate subject to three-fifths of the Senate agreeing to end debate. Senator Ron Wyden has stated he will filibuster PIPA along with Senators Jerry Moran, Maria Cantwell, and Rand Paul and together they will use the full 30 hours available resulting in the cloture vote being held the next day.

On January 24th, Majority Leader Reidís cloture motion will have matured its 30 hours and he will then be allowed to call for an up-or-down vote on moving forward to consider PIPA. If three-fifths of the U.S. Senate agree by voting yes on cloture (ending debate), then the bill can be taken up for consideration and the process where Senators can offer amendments will begin as well as another cloture motion (resulting in another 30 hours of debate). The general rule of thumb is a bill that has 60 Senators in support of its passage will take about three days to pass the U.S. Senate.

However, if 60 Senators do not vote yes on cloture, then Senators Wyden, Moran, Cantwell, and Paul will be allowed to continue to speak in opposition to PIPA forever. That being said, what would likely happen in the aftermath if PIPA fails to gain 60 yes votes is the bill is withdrawn and a compromise is negotiated. If no compromise is possible, then the bill officially dies. It is important to note that three-fifths of the Senate must vote yes to move PIPA forward. For example, if 59 Senators voted yes on cloture and 41 Senators voted present or do not vote at all, it fails to pass. The key factor in cloture is three-fifths of the Senate voting yes on cloture and not how many votes are against PIPA.

In other words, as we noted at the time, the race is now on for an additional 20 Senators to sign on with the existing 40 supporters of the bill. If supporters can't find 20 more Senators willing to put their name on the record as supporting PIPA, then the bill likely won't move forward. They already have 40 Senators signed on -- putting their names on a bill that sets up the fundamental legal and technological framework to censor the internet in the US. But, over the last few weeks, this bill has certainly become more toxic as people have spoken out. Unfortunately, it's not toxic enough, and there are plenty of out-of-touch Senators, who don't even realize what's in the bill and what its likely impact will be. That's why there's basically three more weeks in which to make it clear to both supporters of PIPA, as well as those who haven't yet taken a side, that supporting this bill is a huge mistake with serious consequences. If you do have a chance to go to a Town Hall meeting, or otherwise meet your Senator, Public Knowledge has also put together a handy information packet (pdf) with some quick points about the bill, and some sample questions you might want to ask your Senator.

from the way-too-small-a-list dept

Tragically, this list is way too small, but as expected, the Senate has moved much closer to extending some controversial spying provisions of the Patriot Act, without any modifications or new oversight. As we noted when the "deal" was brokered, the Senate leadership (of both parties) hoped to avoid having to actually debate the issue, and the Senate has now voted to skip over any such debate by an overwhelming margin: 74-8. Only eight Senators voted against this move, and they deserve to be highlighted for actually standing up for American principles against over aggressive government surveillance:

Max Baucus (Montana)

Mark Begich (Alaska)

Dean Heller (Nevada)

Jeff Merkley (Oregon)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Rand Paul (Kentucky)

Bernie Sanders (Vermont)

Jon Tester (Montana)

It's really unfortunate that this list is so small. While it does appear that some who voted in favor of cloture are still going to try to introduce amendments that might limit the extensions (but not the overall clauses), it's a real shame that so many of our elected officials don't seem to want to even bother discussing what's at stake.